The Greening of the Super Bowl

The Super Bowl is pure American Red, White and Blue. And organizers are trying to throw in a shade of greenas well.

This year, the National Football league is undertaking a variety of initiatives — from an urban forestry program to donation of a small solar array — to “green” its operations. The most highly publicized initiative is the purchase of renewable energy credits (RECs) to offset all energy use during the game and the month-long set up.

Kara Scharwath of Triple Pundit had a piece on the NFL’s plan to be “super green.”

To help reduce the impact of that energy consumption, the National Football League and the Indianapolis Super Bowl XLVI Host Committee are partnering with Green Mountain Energy to purchase 15,000 megawatt hours of renewable energy certificates (RECs) generated at wind farms in North Dakota to offset the power associated with the event.

It’s encouraging to see a prominent organization like the NFL making an effort to clean up its operations. But the devil is in the details.

At a second glance, one has to wonder if this REC purchase really makes an impact at all.

By purchasing RECs, organizations like the NFL can claim that they are “powered” by renewable energy, when in fact they are not. Here’s the problem: The RECs bought for the Super Bowl are from existing projects in North Dakota. They are not helping build new projects, and are therefore providing a marginal incentive that does very little to expand the industry.

In an email exchange with Auden Schendler, vice president of sustainability at the Aspen Skiing Company (and periodic Climate Progress blogger), he expressed his underwhelming response to the announcement:

“Okay, so the farm is up, and the RECs are therefore not doing anything at all. And in my past work I’ve shown that the marginal income from these credits have virtually no influence on new wind farms. What would have influence? Getting congress to re-approve the tax incentives for wind. That would require an ad during the Super Bowl, not buying RECs.

There are a heck of a lot of things the NFL could be doing to actually try to move the needle in the public consciousness, argues Schendler:

“If the NFL really cared about climate change, they’d use the Jumbotron to have James Hansen speak about the urgency of action on climate. They would use the REC money to buy an ad on TV during the Super Bowl to talk to that audience about the need to pressure elected officials on climate action. But that’s the problem right there: the ad costs a ton of money (way more than the REC purchase) and it’s risky, and actually drives change. So it won’t happen.”

I will say, however, that I don’t think it’s an entirely lost cause. Even though the NFL might not be helping new generation come online, this promotion helps show Americans that the organization “votes” for renewable energy. That’s a story still worth telling.

Unfortunately, telling a good story isn’t enough.

If you want to see how the NFL and REC supplier Green Mountain Energy are marketing the purchase, see the infographic below. It’s got some catchy football analogies that may help the numbers stick in people’s minds.

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